


Rules to live by

by noo



Category: Almost Human
Genre: Episode Related, Episode S01E03: Are You Receiving?, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Near Death Experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2018-01-02 20:44:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noo/pseuds/noo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An ice fishing trip with his dad gives John some new rules to live by.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rules to live by

John looked back over the ice, back over the gap where there was no more ice and to the bucket now lying tipped on its side. Everything squelched as he moved. Under all that soaking wet clothing, he was shivering. The sharp needles were gone, replaced by smaller ones, not as big, but still just as hateful. Tingles all over instead. He could breathe now. See it hanging in the air.

The ice was jagged up where it had broken under his feet. From where he was now, on the stones on the shore, he couldn’t see the blackness, just the white of the ice stretching to the far shore and then the white rising up, as snow covered the trees on the hills around the lake.

Movement caught his attention, back to the overturned bucket. The fish they had caught this afternoon, now flapping and gasping for air on the ice. Had that been him just minutes ago?

He closed his eyes as he lay back onto his dad. It had been a while since he’d been held this tight. A wriggle and the squelching noise wasn’t coming from his own clothes. His dad was just as wet as him.

His legs and boots felt so heavy. Mittens gone somewhere. He’d wanted gloves, all the better to handle the line, but he had been stuck with his mittens bought two years ago for a different trip. The sun was almost over the horizon and everything was slowly going all darker now. Not immediate dark like before. Chirping birds and, far off, the sound of a car. So different from the rush and then the bubbly silence. A closer sound--his dad taking in deep breaths. His ear was tingling from the little rush of air over it. Another shiver.

“Dad…” his voice was croaky. It didn’t seem to want to work properly.

“Shh, John. It’s okay now. I’m with you.”

He loved his dad’s voice. Not something he would say though. He tried to hide the tears as he thought about what his mom would say if she could see them right now, both so soaking wet. A finger waggle and an “oh you!” at his dad. There would have been scolding at him, maybe even her using that stern voice and his full name. Ugh, the horror when the kids at school had found out his middle name, especially from Kevin. The last time he came home drenched, the first thing she made him do was to get out of the wet clothes. It was cold now though. Not like a warm house.

“I’m cold, dad.”

He couldn’t breathe for a moment, just like when he first went under the water, and then his dad relaxed his grip. “How about we get to the car, buddy? You ready to stand?”

John wanted to be honest and say no. He didn’t like being called buddy. He was John now. Becoming a man. His legs felt like they didn’t want to work, but his dad wanted him to stand.

“S-sure,” he said.

It hurt to stand. The needle feeling pressing into his feet with every step he took. The car looked so far away. They made it though, John a bit slower. His dad had the trunk open and was pulling things out. A blanket. John really wanted the blanket.

“C’mon buddy, lets get you out of those clothes and dry off, eh?”

John tried to smile as he stood there. He felt like he was three again and just learning to dress himself, (parents were always going to treat you like you were three). Or the ‘bane of his mother’s existence’ as she used to say, because he had actually mastered the skill of undressing himself first. Just the other week his dad embarrassed him so much by telling that story again, when he was three and he had started to undress in the middle of busy restaurant. Parents were mean sometimes. Other times, they were the best thing.

Right now, his dad was the best thing. Him and his dad. His dad who pulled him out of the cold, wet, dark.

Wrapped up in the blanket, scratchy on his skin, and under the blanket, as naked as that day in the restaurant.

“Dad!” He protested as his dad rubbed hard on his hair. He wasn’t a baby. He could dry himself fine, even if his hands didn’t want to cooperate properly.

His dad stopped as he held John’s face up for inspection. It was dark but John could see that smile, the best smile in the world. The one his dad saved just for him, even if he did give him the most embarrassing middle name. Nothing was ever perfect, as his dad always told him.

“You’re wet too,” John pointed out.

“You got wet first, you get to get dry first,” his dad replied.

John thought that over. “Okay.”

He remembered something else. “You went in.”

There was a look he often didn’t see on his dad’s face.

“It was you.”

John thought that over as he stood there wrapped up in the blanket.

“Next time we should go to Little John lake,” his dad said with a chuckle.

“John Lake!” John snapped back. No way was he going to a lake called Little John.

“In the car, _John_ , I’ll get the spare set of clothes.” The look was back again.

“Yes, sir.” There were rules, strong rules a man had to live by. They were on this trip so John could learn some of those rules from his dad, including what not to do when your fishing partner falls through the ice. His dad had ignored that rule. It was their special trip together. He hopped into the front seat and snuck his hands out from under the blanket to hold them up to the heater. His dad had turned the car on. From the back he heard some swearing, and then his dad talking on the phone, he thought.

“We’re on our way in, should be there in 20 minutes. You have the tracker location of my phone?”

A pause as his dad opened the car door and dumped some dry clothes on the seat. John scrambled a little to hold onto the blanket around himself as he reached for his own clothes in the pile. Socks first. He really wanted socks on. His feet were dirty.

“Good, good. I’ll keep you updated, but he seems to be doing pretty well so far.”

His dad was staring at him, a little smile on his face. His dad.

John smiled back.

**Author's Note:**

> This is all champagneismylife's fault! That is all. She knows what she did!
> 
> So many thanks to [DianaMoon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DianaMoon/pseuds/DianaMoon) for the beta work.
> 
> Lake McFarland in Minnesota does have two lakes adjacent to it, Little John lake and John Lake. I had to use them in this story.


End file.
